Great Shot! Moon of Saturn Seen in New Light

The Cassini spacecraft team has digitally remastered this new image of Saturn's moon Prometheus, showing more clearly its oblong shape, as well as numerous craters over its 100-kilometer length.

Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, ISS, JPL, ESA, NASA

Recent pictures of a tiny oblong moon of Saturn  called
Prometheus  have revealed new details about the intriguing rocky satellite.

The pictures, taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, show Prometheus
as a potato-shaped Saturn moon about 62 miles (100 km) long. Its surface is pockmarked
all over with impact craters from smaller space rocks that have smashed into
it.

Prometheus is perched outside the orbit of the bulk of
Saturn's rings, but inside a thin outer band called the F Ring. Earlier Cassini
photos show the small moon has been tugging the F Ring,
creating kinks in its shape. [See photos
of Saturn's moons.]

Cassini has been orbiting Saturn since 2004 and made a close
flyby of Prometheus in January to record the new snapshots. Digitally
remastered photos from the encounter were released last month.

Cassini, a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency
and the Italian Space Agency, launched in 1997. The prolific probe recently received
a mission extension that should keep it going through 2017.

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Author Bio

Clara Moskowitz, SPACE.com Assistant Managing Editor

Clara has been SPACE.com's Assistant Managing Editor since 2011, and has been writing for SPACE.com and LiveScience since 2008. Clara has a bachelor's degree in astronomy and physics from Wesleyan University, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what her latest project is, you can follow Clara on Google+.